On March 9, NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox sent letters to key leaders in Congress calling for hearings to examine the firearms trafficking investigations tactics employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Those tactics have allegedly allowed firearms to fall into the hands of Mexican criminal organizations, with the knowledge of the BATFE.

In the letters sent to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Ranking Member, John Conyers (D-Mich.) and their counterparts in the U.S. Senate, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Cox wrote that the BATFE project “reportedly allowed over 2,000 firearms to be sold to individuals already linked to Mexican drug cartels. Many of those transactions were reported as suspicious by the licensed firearms dealers themselves, but BATFE reportedly encouraged them to proceed with these sales, which the dealers would otherwise have turned down.”

Cox also called on the committees to look into the BATFE responses to inquiries about these suspect programs, stating “Any investigation should also examine the responses by the BATFE and the Department of Justice to earlier congressional inquiries about the ‘Fast and Furious’ program.”